In a few weeks, Canadian cannabis patients will find it harder than ever to get information about their medicine.

Last month, Health Canada sent a letter to 16 licensed pot producers saying they can't display photos of plants on their sites, tweet links to articles about the benefits of marijuana, or tell clients what a certain strain tastes, smells, or feels like.

Any of that information is advertising, according to our government's health regulator, and it's illegal to promote the sale of a narcotic like "marihuana."

Alcohol has cost the UK approximately £21bn per year in healthcare, crime and lost productivity costs, and yet it is legal and cheaply available in corner shops and supermarkets. (source)

To date cannabis has not caused any direct deaths, has proven medical uses and has been legalised in many parts of America but yet it remains illegal here in the United Kingdom.

I call on you to consider reviewing cannabis as an illegal drug, and take action to follow in the footsteps of other countries and legalise. Please stop peaceful people from turning to dealers and provide them with a safer, regulated and taxed alternative.

Time did not heal all of the wounds inflicted on Lance Cpl. David Counts during the Korean War.

“I shouldn’t be here, but I did make it back,” said the former Marine Corps truck driver.

“The things I’ve seen in my life, it’s not been good,” said Counts, who copes with post-traumatic stress disorder by smoking medical marijuana. “It stays with me every day.”

Veterans Affairs physicians prescribed 10 drugs, including those for anxiety and depression, for Counts. He recently started using medical marijuana after a VA nurse recommended it to him, even thought it’s an illegal drug under federal law, he said.

“I’m gonna try and get off some of these pills,” Counts said. “I wasn’t feeling right.”

Health Canada has expanded its roster of licensed medical marijuana companies, adding Aphria Inc. to the list of firms that can grow and sell the drug to patients.

The company was granted its permit Thursday, bringing the total number of licensed medical marijuana producers in Canada to 14 since the new program began. It is the first new licence Health Canada has granted since the summer.

Aphria is headed by Vic Neufeld, the former chief executive officer of vitamin giant Jamieson Laboratories, along with Leamington, Ontario-based greenhouse operators Cole Cacciavillani and John Cervini, whose facilities grow flowers and vegetables for large retail chains across the country.

University of Texas just published their research into the long-term effects of marijuana

For anyone already following the story: 

The interim report put forward to the Tasmanian government, calling for an urgent legislative change aimed at protecting seriously ill medical cannabis users from prosecution, has today been rejected. 

Tasmanian Health Minister Michael Ferguson ruled out any changes to the current laws, telling the press: "Advice from Tasmania Police is it's not necessary and could potentially create a new set of problems including opening up the risk that people would self-medicate, with no licensing or limit to quantity. The Police Commissioner has said Tasmania Police will not seek to criminally pursue terminally ill users of cannabis." 

In an enormous glasshouse a few hours from London, there’s a powerful, unmistakable smell in the air: it’s the one that seems to cling to some surly teenagers and drifts around on the breeze at pop festivals. Here, 30,000 cannabis plants sway gently beneath giant fans and immensely bright lights. Only the remarkable uniformity of the plants – and the people walking round in lab coats – tells you the place isn’t some drug lord’s illicit cannabis factory.